


We Are the Time, We Are the Famous (the New York remix)

by xihale



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xihale/pseuds/xihale
Summary: Nobody talk about what happened in New York.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coricomile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/gifts).
  * Inspired by [We Are The Time, We Are The Famous](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7309963) by [coricomile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile). 



They leave pieces of themselves behind in each city they spoil.

In Pittsburgh, Sidney watched as Geno walked towards him for the first time. In Dallas, Artemi skated in white and gold for the first time. In Glendale, Artemi flashed his first smile at Sidney and said, “I see picture.”

“Oh no,” Sidney said, because this was his worst nightmare. Set the scene: dark pub, low light, teammates. Geno’s thigh, pressed close to his, a warm comfort against Sidney’s skin as always. The imagined heat of the night pressed down on Sidney, boxing him and his fervor inside invisible lines.

Tanger cracked up, on the other side of Sidney. “To be fair, everyone’s seen the photos,” he said.

“Good picture,” Artemi said, the very image of innocence.

“That’s the worst,” Sidney said.

“Very very cute,” Geno said. His foot tapped Sidney’s and pressed down on the toes, a gentle weight. 

Tanger drained his glass and stood up. “Well, enjoy it while it last, kiddo,” he said to Artemi, “because Sid’s never shown it to anyone since.” He ambled away towards the bar.

“That’s not true,” Sidney said to the rest of the table. It was true.

“I do,” Geno said.

“Do what?” Artemi asked. He was a good sport about trying to speak English. Sidney both admired and appreciated it.

“Enjoy it,” Geno said, in English, which Sidney neither admired nor appreciated, because in the next second, he started pulling out his wallet. “I keep it.”

“You do _not_ ,” Sidney said.

“Very very cute,” Geno said, again, and from somewhere inside the chaos of his wallet, he pulled out a photo. “See?”

It was an old photo, a little sepia in the way reminiscent of film cameras. A sullen young lion stared out from the photo, a small dark mohawk of a mane on top of his head. He held a puck in his mouth.

“Well, fuck,” Sidney said, at the same time Artemi _cracked_ up.

“Yes, yes, this,” Artemi said.

“Very very cute,” Geno said, for the third time. He glanced back at Sidney, leaning his chin on one hand. His eyes are so dark, so fond, so familiar.

“What are we looking at?” Tanger asked, arriving back at the table with more beer.

“Lion,” Artemi said.

“Sid,” Geno said, with a crooked smile.

“Absolutely nothing,” Sidney said, and took a glass from Tanger.

“Oh, I remember this,” Tanger said, after he took the photo from Artemi. “Rimouski, isn’t it?”

“Young,” Geno confirmed.

“You have this?” Artemi asked, eyebrows raised a little.

“Sid probably gave it to him,” Tanger said, which is the worst kind of lie and slander, and he messes Sidney’s hair, a bit like he’s trying to coax it into a mohawk again. “Don’t be surprised at anything these two do, eh?” he added, to Artemi. “They have a symbiotic thing going on. I don’t even ask anymore.”

Sidney shut his mouth. Artemi’s eyes glided over Tanger, and Sidney was pretty sure he didn’t know the meaning of most of Tanger’s words. But from the way his gaze dropped and his hands suddenly disappeared under the table, it was clear and he got the _gist_ of it.

Geno’s thigh was no longer warm against Sidney. The air had gone still, cooled into a kind of silence that was solid, its own presence.

“That first period,” Sidney broke in, and turned to Tanger, jump-start the stalled air. “We’ve got to respond better.”

As Tanger responded with something, out of the corner of his eyes, Sidney saw Geno slide the photo back to his wallet, face down. Artemi glanced up, then down again.

Geno had a sprained knee, Artemi had seen photos of Sidney when he was young, and Sidney, Sidney had one rule that they are all very, very intent on following:

_Nobody talk about what happened in New York._

In Nashville, years before New York, Geno stumbled against Sidney, darkness settling in a cloud around him, and Sidney had felt something slither outside of him, unseen but like gravity pulling.  

“Sorry,” Geno had said, hours later. He found Sidney in a hallway, after everyone else was gone. His lips weren’t used to shaping English, only months into North American life, but his eyes spoke common tongue. “Hard. Difficult.”

“That was you,” Sidney said, to confirm. That feeling of _loss_ came from Geno.

“Me,” Geno said. “Hard.”

He looked like he wanted to say more but didn’t know how to say it. In Buffalo, much later, after Geno’s tongue could curl around English sounds much better, Sidney had asked again, but Geno had had no idea what Sidney was talking about. But in Buffalo, Geno looked tired beyond anything Sidney had seen.

In Pittsburgh, these were the things Sidney knew about Geno: he was born in July 31, 1986; he was from Russia; he shot left; he was drafted second overall in 2004; he seemed nice; he fed on emotions. 

Later, in Winnipeg, he revised _emotions_ to _strong emotions_ , and then in Ottawa, to _passion_ , because there was something in the way Geno lost control when he was surrounded by too much of it. He mostly didn’t feed at work, kept himself out of teammates and the crowd, even though it must’ve been difficult. Arenas were always, always charged with emotion.

Geno sometimes had trouble with Sidney, though.

“Sorry,” he said, looking up at the ceiling of the locker room.

“You know it’s fine,” Sidney said. He sat next to him, and looked up at the ceiling, too, trying to find what redemption Geno was seeking.

When Sidney glanced next to him, Geno had a small faded smile. “You feel too much, Sid,” he’d said.

In Cole Harbor, Sidney found his favorite place in his parent’s yard. He let himself grow paws, the large mane that he sported now, and began digging as deeply as he could. Once he was done, he pulled his lion out of himself, and buried it. Putting the dirt back was harder than digging it, with his human hands, but he did it.

He never transformed again, but they won the Cup that year.

In Toronto, six years later, Tanger asked Artemi, “What do _you_ feed on?”

“Sex,” Geno answered, before Artemi could.

In Washington, Ovechkin checked Geno into the board, and the two of them nearly killed each other before chatting by the Penguins bench.

“Not much dreaming, this one,” Ovi said, and flashed Sidney a smile.

In Chicago, Artemi’s eyes glassed over, his stick on the grip confused, another lifetime overlapping him. When he stumbled into Sidney, nothing pulled out. But Artemi held onto Sidney’s hand, a little longer, like this was what was keeping him here.

In New York, Sidney knocked on Geno’s hotel room door, idly, and Artemi answered. His hair was messy and his lips were swollen. He blinked at Sidney, sleepily, his shorts hanging low on his hips. A reddened bruise was on his neck.

In Cole Harbor, Sidney lost his first ever hockey game. He sat bawling his eyes out, not even knowing how to articulate the hot ball of anger and shame inside him, fury like his five-year-old heart has never known.

His father tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. There was rain hitting the windshield, pitter-patter-pitter of tiny feet touching down.

“You’re going to lose games, Sid,” he said. He looked sad.

 _But not this one_ , Sidney wanted to explain, except his mouth couldn’t form the words he wanted. It was hard to explain, just as it will be in the future, every single fucking time: every time, in every game lost, there was something that shouldn’t have made it a loss. A strength they should have played up. A weakness they should have exploited. A light that flickered, a wind that caught him outside the arena.

“Every time you won, Sid, somebody lost,” his father said.

 _Not me_ , Sidney had thought. _Not me_. His mouth still couldn’t form the words. There was a howling inside him.

In Cole Harbor, Sidney curled up next to his sister, her tail a comforting weight on his wrist, and thought about digging his lion up, only to cut his lion into even tinier and tinier pieces, recursion upon recursion, until he could scatter all of him into the Earth’s atmosphere, breathed into everyone’s lungs.

In New York, Sidney opened the door to his hotel room to find Geno standing outside, looking tired.

“You said,” Geno said, and wrestled his way inside.

Sidney let him, stepped aside. He watched as Geno ambled inside, parked his ass on the dressed by the bathroom door, and looked steadily at Sidney. Behind him, the mirror reflected only Sidney, straight through where Geno’s back should be.

“What?” Sidney asked.

“You said, you don’t stay away,” Geno said.

“I did,” Sidney said. He looked at Geno, not where his reflection didn’t show up on the mirror. “What do you need?”

It wasn’t Geno, it was Artemi. When Sidney walked into the room that the two were sharing, Artemi lay pale on the bed. He struggled up when Sidney stepped inside, but even that seemed to take too much effort. He was nearly translucent, his fingertips disappearing into air, and Sidney could see through his collarbones, a little.

“What happened?” Sidney asked, his heart jumping to his throat. He walked up and reached for Artemi’s hand, before pausing. He didn’t know if he should touch.

Geno made a sound like he was about to answer, but Artemi’s eyes zeroed in on Sidney. His pupils were like a cat’s, the only sharp lines that Sidney could see in him.

“So hungry,” Artemi said, and even his voice was becoming translucent, edges softening into nothingness. He said a few more words, softly, that Sidney did not understand.

“How did it get this bad?” Sidney asked Geno.

“Not enough,” Geno said. “Love.”

The word was so incongruent, Sidney didn’t get it for long seconds. And then Sidney was terrified, like the time he buried his lion years ago, because love—love was nothing he knew how to give. He decided to give that up, in Buffalo.

“I can try,” Sidney said, mouth dry. He focused on them both, now sitting on the bed, equal foreign looks aimed towards him. “I can _try_.”

It was Geno who drew him in first, took the back of his head and pressed a kiss on his lips. “Nobody has love like you, Sid,” he said, just above Sidney’s skin, so fond, so familiar, so dark.

Artemi made a sound in his throat, and now, now he sounded more solid than ever. “He confused,” he said, but then he reached for Sidney’s hand, around Geno. The tips of Artemi’s fingers were faded, but Sidney could feel them around his hand. Sidney was grateful for it.

Geno said something in Russian, rather rudely, and Sidney found he didn’t mind it when Artemi laughed.

“You don’t _have_ love,” Artemi said, and before Sidney could respond, added, “Love is what you _do_.”

It’s a collision, the three of them. At the periapsis, where Geno’s distance to Sidney is the closest, Artemi crashes into their well-worn orbit.

In New York, though, in New York, hours before his hunger set in, between the team bus and the team hotel, Artemi said, “I want to go,” and mimics holding up a flame.

“What?” Geno asked.

“The statue of liberty,” Sidney said. He’d given this tour several times.

Artemi was stretched out on the bench, an enigmatic smile on his lips. “I wanna see,” he insisted.

Geno didn’t want to, but Sidney went, and so Geno did, too. Sidney pulled on a Mets cap and stood with the two of them.

In New York, Sidney didn’t dream, but he never learned his lessons, either. When Artemi will tell him that love is what Sidney does, Sidney will understand what Artemi draws from is his lion, after all. They leave pieces of themselves behind in each city they spoil, that come together in a concerto across the land, an Ozymandias after Ozymandias. 

It's a conversation, the three of them. 

 


End file.
